iSSv 


HOSPITAL  AT  YU  YAO-CENTRAL  CHINA 


The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.S.A. 
156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


A NEW  DAY  IN  MEDICAL  MISSIONS 


Whatever  may  be  the  outcome  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  the  War  has  fostered 
a new  league  of  humanity,  introduced  a 
new  era  of  philanthropy,  and  ushered  in  a 
nciv  day  for  medical  missions. 

The  War  was  world  wide.  Mission  lands 
did  not  escape.  Neutral  nations  as  well  as 
those  allied  on  either  side  of  the  conflict 
were  alike  sufferers.  Eighteen  of  the  twen- 
ty-seven missions  of  the  Presbyterian 
Board  are  in  lands  which  were  directly  af- 
fected by  the  War,  either  as  belligerents, 
like  Japan,  China,  Siam,  and  Guatemala;  or 
as  dependencies  of  belligerent  nations,  like 
India,  Syria,  Chosen,  the  Philippines,  and 
West  Africa;  or  as  nations  which  were 
caught  between  the  upper  and  nether  mill- 
stones of  the  opposing  forces  and  therefore 
made  helpless  sufferers,  like  Persia.  Some 
of  our  missionaries  were  exposed  to  peril 
from  the  violence  of  fighting  men  who  were 
not  held  in  check  by  their  officers  who, 
perhaps  as  in  the  case  of  the  Kurds,  were 
as  savage  as  their  followers.  Other  mis- 
sionaries were  endangered  by  mobs,  not  be- 
cause they  were  personally  hated,  but  be- 
cause they  were  so  situated  that  they  were 
involved  in  the  common  tumult.  Still  oth- 
ers, a far  larger  number,  were  imperiled  by 
pestilence.  Typhus  fever  raged  to  a fright- 
ful degree  among  the  starving  refugees, 
particularly  in  Persia  and  Syria,  and  that  is 
a disease  which  spares  no  one,  whether 
physician,  nurse,  or  patient.  Famine  raged 
in  a number  of  fields,  and  while  the  support 
of  the  Board  provided  necessary  food  for 
the  missionaries,  it  was  impossible  to  feed 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  famishing 
people.  The  Board  and  its  officers  loyally 
cooperated  with  the  relief  committees  which 
were  organized  in  America.  On  the  field 
nearly  all  of  the  millions  of  dollars  that 
were  secured  and  the  hundreds  of  tons  of 
food  that  were  distributed  were  handled  by 

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foreign  missionaries,  the  Presbyterian  mis- 
sionaries doing  practically  all  of  this  work 
in  Persia  and  Syria. 

The  task  of  the  medical  missionary  and 
the  opportunity  for  service  were  greatly 
augmented  because  of  famine,  pestilence, 
the  ravages  of  disease,  the  depleted  vitality 
of  the  people,  the  large  increase  of  orphan 
children,  and  the  thousands  of  old  people 
rendered  helpless  by  the  War.  More  than 
300  of  the  1,364  missionaries  associated 
with  the  Board  were  directly  engaged  in 
some  form  of  relief. 

COOPERATION 

The  great  word  in  the  War  was  coopera- 
tion. It  was  not  only  an  allied  army  at  the 
front  which  won  battles,  but  the  forces  be- 
hind the  lines,  often  in  far-distant  lands 
where  suffering  reigned  supreme,  that  uni- 
ted in  loyal  and  helpful  service.  An  ex- 
cellent example  of  this  cooperation  was 
seen  in  the  work  done  in  connection  with 
the  Presbyterian  mission  hospital  in  Heng- 
chow,  China.  A civil  war,  accentuated  by 
the  World  War,  was  raging  in  China.  North 
and  South  were  in  deadly  conflict.  The 
hospital  at  Hengchow  became  the  medical 
headquarters  of  the  Red  Cross  Society.  The 
regular  hospital  staff,  assisted  by  Chinese 
physicians  and  numerous  missionary  and 
lay  assistants  from  the  community,  carried 
on  a cooperative  medical  work  typical  of 
that  which  was  being  done  throughout  the 
whole  mission  world. 

Of  the  hospital  at  Hengchow  it  was  writ- 
ten: 

“The  whole  place  was  a mass  of  beds; 
beds  in  the  corridor,  rows  of  beds  in 
the  adjacent  temple,  rooms  in  the 
Woman’s  Hospital  and  in  the  dispens- 
ary all  filled  with  beds.  Bands  of  wom- 
en were  engaged  in  preparing  an  ade- 
quate supply  of  bandages,  swabs,  and 
other  supplies.  The  Girls’  School  and 

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the  women  from  the  church,  super- 
vised by  trained  nurses,  did  the  prelim- 
inary rolling.  All  the  supplies  of  cloth- 
ing which  could  be  found  in  the  town 
had  been  gathered  and  put  to  active  use. 
Two  men  were  continually  washing  and 
drying  bandages  and  dressings,  and 
there  were  rolled  daily  some  200  band- 
ages. There  were  7 dressing  tables  in 
operation  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
day.  Six  coolies  were  continually  car- 
rying patients.  School  boys  from  the 
mission  schools  were  assisting  doctors, 
nurses,  and  probationers.  It  was  a fine 
bit  of  cooperation — missionary.  Red 
Cross,  and  the  entire  community,  Chris- 
tian and  non-Christian.” 

In  Syria  all  the  members  of  the  mission, 
36  in  number,  were  engaged  in  some  form  of 
relief  work.  This  was  also  true  of  the  75 
missirnaries  in  the  9 stations  of  the  East 
and  V/est  Persia  missions,  who  were  either 
engaged  in  war  service,  or  feeding  starving 
Moslems,  Syrians,  Persians,  Kurds,  and 
Armenians,  or  buying  wheat  or  tools  and 
farming  implements  or  clothing,  or  caring 
for  the  sick,  and  in  some  cases  acting  as 
consular  agents  for  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment. Three  of  the  Syria  mission  force 
were  deported  because  of  activities  in  relief 
work. 

“Relief  work,”  reads  the  report  of  the 
Syria  mission,  “has  consumed  much  of 
the  time  of  the  missionaries.  The  sight 
of  many  dying  in  the  streets  from 
starvation  and  disease,  and  the  con- 
stant cries  of  ‘hungry,  hungry,’  have 
given  us  such  physical  wear  and  tear 
that  no  one  has  been  up  to  normal 
strength  and  capacity.  Typhus,  chol- 
era, malaria,  malnutrition,  insufficient 
clothing,  and  grip  claimed  thousands.” 

The  story  of  Persia  is  even  more  lurid. 
There  the  missionaries  were  practically  the 
only  agents  of  the  Committee  for  Arme- 

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nian  and  Syrian  Relief  (now  “The  Near 
East  Relief”)  in  distributing  relief  funds. 
War  raged  continually.  Hostile  armies 
ravaged  the  country,  destroyed  crops,  killed 
the  men  and  boys,  and  carried  helpless 
women  and  girls  into  captivity.  Hospitals 
were  seized  and  looted  and  hospital  stores 
taken.  Practically  the  entire  nation  of 
Nestorians  were  compelled  to  flee  from 
Urumia,  and  thousands  of  them  lost  their 
lives.  But  in  the  face  of  war,  of  pestilence, 
of  famine,  of  much  illness  in  the  mission 
force,  the  missionary  physician  and  his  no 
less  noble  clerical  and  lay  assistants  la- 
bored on  among  these  people,  many  of  the 
missionaries  making  “the  supreme  sacri- 
fice” in  their  efforts  to  save  the  lives  of 
others.  The  physician  had  to  face  such 
conditions  as  these: 

“Tales  come  from  the  south  of  starv- 
ing people  eating  each  other  and  their 
own  children,  people  like  dogs  and  birds 
of  prey  eating  any  kind  of  flesh,  no 
matter  how  long  dead.  There  are  no 
dead  horses,  for  as  soon  as  one  dies 
people  pounce  upon  the  body  for  food.” 
The  wife  of  a missionary  physician  thus 
writes  of  conditions  in  Urumia: 

“One  of  our  yards  in  the  city  is  now 
sheltering  over  a thousand  Moslems, 
and  a thousand  Kurds  are  here  at  the 
hospital.  We  have  a whole  village  of 
Moslems  and  Kurds  living  in  our  sta- 
bles, chicken  houses,  and  buggy  sheds. 
Our  cows  at  home  are  clean,  compar- 
ed with  the  indescribable  filth  of  these 
refugees.” 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  a true  conception 
of  the  service  which  the  medical  missionary 
rendered.  Operations  were  performed  on 
the  roofs  of  houses,  sick  children  had  to  be 
placed  on  the  balconies  of  missionary  homes 
(where  many  of  them  died),  and  at  times 
in  and  around  the  mission  premises  one 
could  not  step  without  touching  the  sick 

5 


and  dying,  the  starving  or  the  dead.  The 
story  of  Persia,  when  fully  told,  will  reveal 
a new  day  in  the  history  of  medical  and 
philanthropic  missions,  but  it  is  a story  of 
wonderful  cooperation,  a marvelous  use  of 
the  latest  medical  science,  and  a fine  ex- 
ample of  Christian  sacrifice. 

PREVENTION 

Another  great  word  in  the  War  was 
prevention.  One  of  the  largest  medical  fruits 
of  the  War  was  the  value  of  preventive 
medicine.  This  was  well  stated  in  a letter 
by  Dr.  David  Bovaird  who  is  the  honorary 
medical  adviser  of  the  Presbyterian  Board, 
who  from  the  entrance  of  the  United  States 
into  the  War,  first  in  camps  in  this  country 
and  then  on  the  battlefront,  was  engaged  in 
medical  military  service.  Dr.  Bovaird  wrote 
as  follows: 

“One  of  the  really  startling  results 
(to  me)  of  experience  in  the  medical 
work  of  any  army  is  the  comparative 
unimportance  of  what  is  done  for  the 
individual  in  the  way  of  treatment, 
either  medical  or  surgical,  when  weigh- 
ed against  the  tremendous  influence  of 
the  measures  that  affect  the  army  as  a 
whole.  Changes  in  treatment  save  a 
life  here  and  there,  or  perhaps  a few 
hundred  lives,  and  it  may  be  that  these 
few  lives  are  of  great  value,  but  the  big 
things  are  the  measures  of  preventive 
medicine,  sanitation,  and  hygiene,  which 
touch  the  whole  mass  of  millions  of 
men,  and  when  properly  employed,  save 
tens  of  thousands.” 

The  greatest  things  to  be  done  in  the 
Orient  lie  among  these  lines — the  preven- 
tion of  disease  among  the  teeming  millions. 
The  possibilities  of  service  in  this  field  are 
almost  unlimited. 

The  War  merely  accentuated  a movement 
which  for  years  has  been  gaining  momen- 
tum in  the  Orient.  The  Chinese  Medical 

6 


Missionary  Association,  composed  of  all  the 
medical  missionaries  in  China,  was  organ- 
ized some  30  years  ago.  It  was  not, 
however,  until  1910  that  the  Association  ap- 
pointed a committee  to  prepare  literature 
on  the  subject  of  disease  prevention.  In 
1912  the  Young  Men’s  Christian  Associa- 
tion, cooperating  with  the  China  Medical 
Missionary  Association,  began  a “Public 
Health  Educational  Campaign.”  In  1916  a 
National  Medical  Association,  composed  of 
all  native  practitioners  of  modern  medicine 
in  China,  was  organized.  These  three  or- 
ganizations— the  National  Committee  of 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  China  Medical  Mission- 
ary Association,  and  the  China  Medical  As- 
sociation— organized  a “Joint  Council  of 
Public  Health  Education,”  with  the  purpose 
of  unifying  the  activities  of  the  three  organ- 
izations. Campaigns  were  held  in  various 
cities,  in  which  stereopticon  lectures  were 
given  with  talks  on  sanitation,  health  charts 
and  diagrams  exhibited,  and  many  meetings 
held,  both  with  the  literati  and  the  common 
people,  in  which  a full  discussion  of  the 
value  of  preventive  medicine  was  had,  data 
given,  and  concrete  examples  furnished, 
which  were  most  convincing  to  the  Chinese 
mind. 

The  China  Medical  Board,  organized  in 
1914  by  the  Rockefeller  Foundation,  was 
designed  to  bring  to  China  the  best  results 
of  modern  medical  research  along  all  lines, 
with  special  reference  to  the  teaching  of 
hygiene  and  sanitation  and  the  prevention 
of  disease.  In  pursuance  of  this  aim,  the 
China  Medical  Board,  after  the  consulta- 
tion, agreed  to  cooperate  with  the  existing 
Mission  Boards  in  connection  with  their 
medical  work  in  China.  This  is  possibly 
the  greatest  forward  movement  in  medical 
missions  in  the  last  few  years.  Money  and 
men  are  furnished  by  the  China  Medical 
Board  to  hospitals  and  medical  schools  of 
Mission  Boards,  the  basis  being  that  the 
China  Medical  Board  gives  three-fourths  of 

7 


the  amounts  required,  and  the  Mission 
Boa’'d  furnishes  the  additional  one-fourth. 

The  War  has  revealed  hov^r  much,  even  in 
Er  pean  countries,  there  is  need  of  pre- 
vent’ve  medicine.  If  this  is  true  in  civilized 
Europe,  much  more  is  it  true  in  countries 
like  China  and  India  and  Africa,  where 
sar?  tation  and  hygiene  are  practically  un- 
known. In  India  the  Woman’s  Christian 
Mec'cal  College  at  Ludhiana  is  one  of  the 
fev7  institutions  for  the  education  of  women 
in  i^ndia  in  modern  medicine,  and  the  only 
one  that  is  not  coeducational.  This  College, 
in  addition  to  medical  training,  has  a course 
in  pharmacy  and  a three  years’  nursing 
cor  se.  Here  again  coof’cratioii  is  domi- 
nart,  for  the  cooperating  Boards  are: 
Northern  Presbyterian,  United  Presby- 
te  n,  Canadian  Presbyterian,  Church  of 
England  Zenana  Mission,  Church  Mission- 
ary Society,  Northern  Methodist,  United 
Free  Church  of  Scotland,  Church  of  Scot- 
land, Zenana  Bible  and  Medical  Mission, 
an  1 New  Zealand  Mission. 

The  Severance  Union  Medical  College  at 
Sectil,  Chosen,  embraces  all  the  Presby- 
terian and  all  the  Methodist  bodies  at  work 
in  Chosen,  and  the  Society  for  the  Propa- 
gation of  the  Gospel. 

The  training  of  native  women  as  nurses 
has  been  greatly  increased  in  the  last  few 
years.  The  War  made  as  great  demand  for 
nurses  as  for  physicians.  In  1918  the  Har- 
riet House  School  for  Girls  in  Bangkok, 
Siam,  sent  three  of  its  teaching  force  to  the 
Philippines  to  take  up  the  study  of  nursing 
and  medicine,  two  of  them  to  fit  themselves 
to  become  women  physicians  in  Siam,  and 
the  third  to  become  a trained  nurse.  These 
young  women  went  to  the  Philippines  at 
their  own  expense  and  are  the  forerunners 
of  a great  army  in  mission  lands  who  will 
become  assistants  to  the  medical  mission- 
aries. One  of  our  Urumia  missionaries,  now 
engaged  in  reconstruction  work  in  Meso- 
potamia, writes: 


8 


“One  of  the  interesting  things  is  that 
80  of  our  girls  are  being  developed  into 
quite  capable  nurses  in  the  hospitals. 
Many  who  accepted  this  training  were 
mountain  girls  or  from  the  poorest  of 
the  plain  villages,  ragged,  unkempt  and 
generally  unpromising  in  appearance. 
They  took  hold  of  the  work  with  inter- 
est, and  the  transformation  that  has 
taken  place  is  astonishing.  Even  the 
faces  of  the  girls  have  taken  on  a new 
character  indicative  of  purposefulness 
and  self-respect.” 

INTERNATIONALISM 

The  new  day  in  medical  missions  is  seen 
in  the  actual  realization  on  the  part  of  the 
Oriental  of  the  service  of  the  medical  mis- 
sionary. There  is  a certain  contagion  about 
philanthropy.  The  philanthropic  spirit 
which  swept  over  America  and  which  en- 
abled one  relief  committee  to  raise  over 
$20,000,000  simply  for  Orientals,  affected  all 
Latin  America,  and,  in  a more  or  less  de- 
gree, the  entire  world.  For  example,  in 
Vera  Cruz  in  the  midst  of  the  War  a native 
Mexican  preacher  interested  a young  drug- 
gist and  a group  of  young  people  in  a Chris- 
tian Endeavor  Society,  and  persuaded  them 
to  open  a dispensary  for  the  suffering  poor. 
The  dispensary  was  begun  with  a big  bottle 
of  quinine  and  great  faith.  Thirty  firms 
gave  of  their  drugs  the  first  year,  and  many 
people  gave  of  their  time  and  labor  for  the 
erection  of  a dispensary  building,  as  well 
as  money  for  the  medicines.  Four  Mexican 
physicians  gave  their  services.  The  patients 
range  from  four  years  of  age  to  over  80, 
and  represent  many  nationalities.  This  was 
born  in  the  thought  of  a native  preacher. 
In  a large  way  this  growing  realization  of 
obligation  is  seen  in  the  report  of  the  sec- 
ond American  Child  Welfare  Congress 
which  was  held  in  the  City  of  Montevideo, 
Uruguay,  May  15th-25th.  The  Rev.  W.  E. 

9 


Browning,  one  of  the  missionaries  of  the 
Presbyterian  Board,  and  Educational  Sec- 
retary of  the  Committee  on  Cooperation 
in  Latin  America,  was  appointed  to  repre- 
sent the  United  States  at  this  Conference. 
The  Conference  was  attended  by  represen- 
tatives from  all  Latin  American  countries, 
and  discussed  numerous  questions  relating 
to  child  welfare. 

Among  the  many  actions  taken  by  the 
Congress  was  one  creating  an  International 
American  Bureau  for  Child  Welfare,  “which 
shall  be  the  center  of  study  and  propa- 
ganda in  America  of  all  questions  relating 
to  the  child.”  The  questions  discussed  re- 
lated to  the  physical,  mental  and  moral 
being  of  children,  and  special  reference  to 
questions  of  sanitation  and  hygiene  as  re- 
lated to  the  upbringing  of  the  child. 

The  idea  has  spread  throughout  mission 
lands. 

Certain  prominent  statesmen  in  America 
see  subtle  dangers  in  the  new  international- 
ism which  lies  hidden  in  the  League  of  Na- 
tions. The  entrance  of  the  United  States 
into  world  politics  is  feared  by  many,  but 
whatever  may  be  the  dangers  political  from 
this  step,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
medicine  at  least  there  must  be  a new  in- 
ternationalism. In  an  address  delivered  in 
the  City  of  New  York  in  June,  1919,  by  a 
prominent  physician,  it  was  said; 

“The  world  has  just  passed  through, 
indeed  is  still  passing  through,  per- 
haps the  greatest  medical  calamity  of 
history — the  epidemic  of  influenza.  No 
part  of  the  world  as  a whole  has  es- 
caped this  epidemic — the  greatest  catas- 
trophe of  medical  history.  It  has  killed 
more  people  and  caused  more  misery 
than  any  other  epidemic  of  the  same 
length  of  time.  It  had  its  origin  in  the 
tablelands  of  Turkestan.” 

The  last  sentence  is  germane  to  our 
theme:  “It  had  its  origin  in  the  tablelands 

10 


of  Turkestan.”  The  diseases  of  non-Chris- 
tian lands  enter  Christian  lands  without 
being  invited,  nay,  more,  the  diseases  es- 
cape the  most  vigorous  quarantine  officials. 

Internationalism  in  medicine  is  making 
rapid  strides.  In  1911  the  pneumonic  plague 
raged  in  North  China.  Dr.  Charles  Lewis, 
a missionary  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  at 
Paotingfu,  was  employed  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  fight  the  spread  of  the  disease.  His 
heroic  services  were  honored  by  the  local 
preventive  society  of  Paotingfu,  this  so- 
ciety being  made  up  of  the  highest  officials 
of  the  city.  In  1918  the  plague  was  again 
rife  in  North  China  and  Manchuria  and  it 
was  feared  it  would  descend  rapidly  into 
the  very  heart  of  China.  Again  the  officials 
not  only  asked  Dr.  Lewis,  but  gave  him  ab- 
solute authority  to  destroy  property  and  to 
issue  orders  of  the  severest  character,  and 
to  use  the  most  stringent  measures  in  order 
to  wipe  out  the  disease. 

One  of  the  Presbyterian  missionaries  of 
Nan,  Siam,  has  waged  a crusade  against 
hookworm.  H.  S.  H.,  Prince  Bovardej, 
Viceroy  of  the  Northern  Provinces,  visited 
Nan  and  through  his  influence  permission 
was  obtained  to  treat  100  soldiers  at  the 
barracks  for  hookworm,  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain the  percentage  of  infection.  The  con- 
ditions of  the  test  were:  diagnosis  before 
treatment;  blood  test;  and  a history  of  each 
individual  before  treatment  was  adminis- 
tered. The  results  showed  the  following 
percentages  of  infection:  hookworm  100 
per  cent.;  round  worms,  55  per  cent.;  tape 
worms,  28  per  cent.;  pin  worms,  25  per  cent. 
The  mental  and  physical  improvement  has 
been  so  satisfactory  that  the  commanding 
officer  is  seeking  permission  to  have  all  the 
soldiers  treated. 

These  are  only  indications  of  the  vast  pos- 
sibilities of  the  internationalization  of  medi- 
cine. The  whole  subject  of  preventive 

II 


medicine  is  but  in  its  infancy.  Under  date 
of  July  18,  1919,  an  Associated  Press  dis- 
patch from  Paris  makes  the  following  sig- 
nificant statement: 

“The  most  important  medical  expe- 
dition ever  organized  to  fight  typhus 
will  leave  Paris  in  a few  days  to  try  to 
stamp  out  the  disease  in  Poland,  and  to 
attempt  to  avert  a threatened  epidemic 
in  Central  Europe  this  winter.  . . Amer- 
ican and  British  army  authorities  have 
sold  Poland  the  larger  part  of  their  de- 
lousing  equipment,  and  the  Polish  Min- 
ister of  Health  is  gathering  all  such 
equipment  left  behind  by  the  Germans. 

“Eight  hundred  railway  cars  and  700 
motor  trucks  will  be  required  to  trans- 
port the  equipment  and  chemicals  of  the 
American  Medical  Expedition.  Per- 
mission has  been  obtained  to  go 
through  German  territory  to  Poland. 

“Typhus  now  is  said  to  be  epidemic 
from  the  Baltic  to  the  Black  Sea.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  is  hoped  the  expedition  can 
exterminate  the  typhus-bearing  lice  be- 
fore cold  weather  permits  the  disease 
to  become  virulent.  The  inter-Allied  re- 
lief expeditions  throughout  Poland  are 
giving  every  possible  assistance  to  the 
people.  It  is  planned  to  disinfect  peo- 
ple, their  clothing,  and  their  homes.” 
The  War  has  left  the  world  a sick  world, 
a diseased  world.  Other  great  expeditions 
will  have  to  be  organized  in  Christian  lands 
if  the  diseases,  many  of  them  growing  out 
of  war  conditions,  are  to  be  successfully 
combated.  The  new  day  in  medical  mis- 
sions CALLS  FOR  A UNITED  SERVICE  OF  THE 
HEROIC  AND  SELF-SACRIFICING  TYPE. 

ABRAM  W.  HALSEY. 


November.  1919 


Form  2683 


